The Final Conclusion - Best Actress 2011

2011

So the much anticipated ranking:

5. Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn

I suppose my biggest issue with this performance was that Michelle could have been given so much more. She's proven it over the years that she's able to perform miracles on the screen with the right material. Well, this material just wasn't right for her. She did all that she could with this part, both technically and emotionally. It's a great performance, it's just not something to go crazy about.

4. Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs

Great Glenn's performance as Albert is not her best work, and it doesn't have the totally mindblowing and disturbing effect of some of her other roles, it's a wonderfully touching and emotional performance. It may not give you a huge experience, it's like reading a chapter from a classic novel: inspiring, uplifting and beautiful in itself and more than serves its purpuse. I stand by her!

3. Rooney Mara in The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo

Rooney Mara gives a wonderful, impressive and very complex performance as Lisbeth Salander. What may seem robotic to others is just pure greatness for me. She brilliantly portrays her character's vulnerability and humiliation, but also her cool and incredibly exciting personality. She shows so many sides and reveals so many layers of this woman so effortlessly that she might come off as doing no acting at all.

2. Viola Davis in The Help

Viola Davis is able to give a layered and heartbreaking performance as Aibileen. In each and every moment of the film, she's endlessly loveable, showing so many emotions and faces of this character. Her incredible talent shines through this somewhat thin material and is able to be wonderfully moving, natural and funny at the same time. I have my isssues about her role, but she's just fantastic

1. Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady

In the end, this is a very obvious choice in every possible way. Meryl is everything that a Best Actress winner should be. She gives a fantastic performance as Margaret Thatcher. She's just brilliant in the technical part of her performance, nails the emotional scenes and she's just thoroughly impressive playing this very controversial and divisive character. Simply brilliant.

 So I can proudly announce

that the winner is...

Meryl Streep 

in 

The Iron Lady

Hail Meryl!

Final thoughts: So Meryl wins her third... from me at the very least and FROM THE ACADEMY AS WELL! YAY!. :) Moreover, she's set a record as my only three time winner so far. Moreover, she's also my first consecutive winner. :) I hope that I won't get too repetitive with Meryl. After the rare vicious comments about her in the past, I feel like going back to her. She's downright brilliant as Thatcher. Viola was also fantastic and I wouldn't be mad if she won (I would be happy for her), just quite disappointed. Michelle was an obvious fifth, Great Glenn and Rooney were pretty much equal to me. My love for Great Glenn caused kind of a controversy here, but I was incredibly glad about the supportive comments. And I'm not someone who remains ungrateful so mrripley, Louis and Fritz can all pick a year (and of course, the previously requested years of Louis and Fritz will be done next, I just didn't have time, sorry). Thank you guys! Also, congrats to Joe Burns and greysie on the correct predictions, they can also pick a year!

*Addition: There was a pretty big Meryl vs. Viola fight among bloggers and fans and we ignored that the best performance of the year (Charlize Theron's) was actually snubbed. She acted five circles around any of these great ladies. Amazing. 

Omissions:

• Charlize Theron in Young Adult *My pick*
• Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids

The next year: 

• I Want To Live: The sequel!
• Klute: The Sequel! 

What do you think? Any thoughts on your mind? Any comments on this  Oscar year (I'll do some posts and rankings on it during the weekend)?

Viola Davis in The Help

Viola Davis made history and became only the second black actress to receive two Oscar nominations. She received the honor for playing Aibileen Clark, a maid who helps out an aspiring young writer with some of her stories about her life as a domestic. At the beginning of the award season, Viola Davis was the absolute front-runner to win the Oscar and if I can be honest, I was really surprised that she didn't win the Golden Globe because this is really a performance that they usually love (I guess they love Meryl more). I guess the SAG love for Viola meant that she's clearly the front-runner once again (I wonder about how the BAFTA will influence the race). 

Although The Help is not an amazing piece of filmmaking, it's a very entertaining and moving film with a cheesy story. Naturally, it's sentimental but it just adds to its charm. However, the film's strength lies in the almost all-female cast. Each and every actress gives a wonderful performance. Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain are both wonderful and deserving of the Academy Award but I'm going to root for Octavia because I think Jessica will have a better shot at winning in the future (and she will win as a leading actress, just a matter of time). I should also mention Allison Janney and Cicely Tyson who do wonders with their roles and provided some of the most moving moments of the film. I wish they had received more recognition for their work. 

Four years ago, Viola Davis was a Tony-winning stage actress who got supporting parts in movies occasionally. However, along came Doubt, in which she outshone Meryl Streep with a six-minute-long, heartbreaking scene, where she gave a terrific performance and for which she should have won the Oscar. In the following year, her situation and parts did not seem to change: all she got was bit parts in action flicks and romantic comedies. Being aware of her talent, it's kind of shocking that she had to make do with those bit parts. No wonder Meryl Streep pleaded at the SAG awards to get Viola a movie. We all know how much Hollywood listents to Meryl and she got Viola that movie, but also got her main rival for the Oscar. 

Gone with the Wind showed us the idealistic, happy house slave, Mammy who would sacrifice herself to help the family she's working for and her beloved Miss Scarlett. Some criticised Hattie McDaniel for playing these very clichéd images of a black woman but she said 'I'd rather play a maid than be one'. Seventy-two years later, we get to see a new and deeper (?) image of domestics in The Help. In a way, the characters of The Help are also clichés and maybe the products of white guilt, but somehow Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer solved this problem: Octavia with her wonderful comic skills and Viola with her dignified and gracious personality.

It's so interesting that The Help wants to be about social equality and yet it didn't have the courage to make a black character the real lead of the picture. In a way, the character of Aibileen is forced to the back of the bus to give the longer storyline to Skeeter's character. That's the reason why it's almost impossible to decide if Viola is leading or supporting character. She's co-lead at best and a sidekick despite the fact that she's far and away the most interesting and layered character of the film. I started to wonder if Aibileen is the most intriguing and heartbreaking character because of the writing or Viola Davis' enormous talent. Let's get this straight: if Viola Davis was a white woman, she would just flow in great parts and Oscars. I am not necessarily saying that Hollywood people are still as racist as the 1960 Mississippi but they still don't have the courage to make a black woman the real lead. They still think in white. But an actress of Viola's calibre would deserve to play all the great parts you could ever imagine.

I guess the fact that Viola is mainly a stage actress still helps her a great deal in her film acting. Her face is so expressive and her whole personality bursts with energy and emotionality. I think she's used to showing her emotions in a very big way and that's why we often get to see a huge amount of tears coming from her. I'm not suggesting at all by this that she's theatrical, far from it: she converts all the necessary stage "tricks" to the big screen, and the results are just wonderful. The reason why I love her so much is probably due to the fact that she reminds me of the greatest Hungarian actors/actresses. Here, it's stage first and then comes the movie and they clearly know the characters more than the film actresses. It's just that they would be able to play the whole thing at once and be just as great.

What we see about Aibileen is that she has a story. In every movement of hers, Viola is revealing something about her, tells a new story and reveals a new layer and depth. Viola wonderfully tells the background of Aibileen: the scene where she talks about her sons death is as heartbreaking as a scene can get (Oscar clip, watch out). What I was amazed at was Viola's ability to create something so natural and wonderful from such cheesy lines. Everything is pure and clean about her, she's free of fake behaviour and sentimentality. 

But honestly, for me the most amazing thing about Viola was how well she showed the love and faith inside Aibileen. She's an embodiment and representation of everything that faith should be about: telling the truth and loving. Her face in the church scene is just wonderful, we just see how touched she's by the message and how she's trying to live according to it.

Another very touching aspect of Viola's performance is the way she shows Aibileen's relationship with her baby girl, Mae Mobley. She shows a very intimate and beautiful relationship between the to of them and I just refuse to believe there's anyone who can keep dry eyes during the last scene where she's saying 'You is kind. You is smart. You is important.' Again, a very cheesy, sentimental line that Viola makes wonderfully moving and wonderful. 

However, Viola's performance is not only moving and loveable, it's also full of humor and gentle irony once she's in the company of Octavia Spencer. Their wonderful scenes cover a wide range of emotions: they are fooling around in the kitchen during the bridge party or comforting each other after Aibileen's character was running from the scene of a terrible murder (Viola portrays Aibileen's fear so heartbreakingly, she made her so vulnerable there). But honestly, it's their scene in the church in the end is the most moving of all: again, it's very sentimental, but somehow so loveable (that perfectly sums up the movie as well). When I first saw the movie and really got under its effect, I felt they were applauded for their future Oscar wins (silly, I know, but it felt like such a moment).

In the end, in a secondary part, Viola Davis is able to give the most layered and heartbreaking performance as Aibileen in The Help. In each and every moment of the film, she's endlessly loveable, showing so many emotions and faces of this character. Her incredible talent shines through this somewhat thin material and is able to be wonderfully moving, natural and funny at the same time. Beautiful, wonderful work for which Viola would deservedly win the Oscar. 

What do you think? 

The Next Year

2011

So the nominees are:

• Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs
• Viola Davis in The Help
• Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady
• Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn

So, another year has come and as of now, the race is very exciting. All of them have a more or less legitimate shot at winning (except for maybe Rooney) so we'll just have to wait until SAG announces (tonight) :). 

But more importantly ;), who will get my vote? What do you think? Can Meryl get her third win from me (and become my first consecutive winner)? Or will I go with one of the four other fantastic ladies, including Great Glenn? Who's your pick? What's your prediction for my ranking? (I'm really interested in that) :)